Man acquitted in cold-case murder to face perjury charges

By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com

Updated:
04/12/2013 07:11:09 AM EDT

LOWELL -- After being acquitted last month in the 1969 cold-case murder of 15-year-old John McCabe, Michael Ferreira will have to argue that a perjury charge accusing him of lying to a grand jury should be dismissed.

In Lowell Superior Court this week, Judge Richard Tucker scheduled a May 28 date for a motion to dismiss the perjury charge in Ferreira's case.

Tucker also scheduled an Aug. 27 date for Ferreira's co-defendant Walter Shelley, 61, of Tewksbury, to go on trial for murder.

Prosecutors alleged that on the night of Sept. 26, 1969, Ferreira, Shelley and Edward Allan Brown abducted McCabe as he walked home from a school dance. They allegedly bound him with rope, taped his mouth and eyes shut, then left him in a Lowell field, allegedly to teach him a lesson for flirting with the wrong girl.

McCabe was found dead the next morning. A state medical examiner ruled the cause of death was asphyxiation caused by strangulation.

During a two-week trial in January, a Middlesex Superior Court jury found Ferreira, 59, of Salem, N.H., not guilty of first-degree murder.

With the verdict, defense co-counsel Stanley Norkunas described the perjury charge as "moot" and expects the charge will eventually be dropped.

Brown, 61, of Londonderry, N.H., is a prosecution witness. He is charged with manslaughter. In exchange for his testimony, he is expected to plead guilty to the charge and serve no time.

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